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Prussian Biscuits

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Prussian Biscuits

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

  1. In a bowl, mix the yolks, sugar, flour, Kirschenwasser, and essence for 20 minutes.

  2. Add the clarified butter and whipped egg whites; mix thoroughly.

  3. Butter small, half-inch deep fancy molds and sprinkle the shredded kernels on the bottoms.

  4. Fill the molds nearly to the top with the batter and sprinkle sugar on the surfaces.

  5. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) until done.

  6. Once cooled, remove from molds and glaze the almond side with transparent icing flavored with Kirschenwasser.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Butter + filberttop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together52 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Filbert + almondtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together80 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetylpyrazine (roast).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Swap the filbert

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, flour, butter, almond):

  1. Pistachiofits better
  2. Cashew nutfits better
  3. Macadamia nutfits better
  4. Filbertthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, butter, almond. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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